Greedy iPhones Gobble The Flash

Written by Adam Gosling

Thursday, 19 July 2007

Apple iPods and iPhones are reportedly using a quarter of the worlds supply of Flash memory says Taiwan memory researcher DRAMeXchange. Apple iPods and iPhones are reportedly using a quarter of the worlds supply of Flash memory says Taiwan memory researcher DRAMeXchange. The market research company says Apple's position as a dominant customer for the world's NAND memory means it can get a good deal on the silicon storage from manufacturers - most notably Samsung which is the worlds largest maker of the storage chips that can remember their contents even when the power is switched off. Not only is that driving the cost down for Apple, but it is ensuring it gets its supply first in a tight market. DRAMeXchange says this is bad news for other makers of mobile devices because there might not be enough to go around this quarter as manufacturers are migrating to a new higher-density manufacturing process. Often when silicon foundries transition to a new process in such a way, there are hiccups which affect yield reducing supply. As this is reducing supply Apple is consuming a larger proportion of the available Flash because its needs are met ahead of other mobile phone and MP3 player manufacturers. It is all conspiring to drive the cost of Flash up, says the researcher, with March prices up by as much as 7 per cent. The second major increase for the year and likely to start flowing through to consumers soon. "Production snags in the migration to more advanced NAND Flash manufacturing processes has led to a lower-than-expected output," DRAMeXchange. "At the same time, with the iPhone and iPod set to consume a significant amount of flash chips, the market has grown wary that a shortage may occur. In the near term, prices are expected to continue rising." It could take more than half a year for all this to pass and the bulk of Flash factories to start pumping out enough volume to ease the price a little. Related news items Optus To Offer Mobile Credit Card System -10/10/2007 Hybrid Drive Boosts Laptop's Skillset -10/10/2007 Broadcom Enthusisam for 802.11n Wavers -06/09/2007 BlackBerry Gets A New Browser -03/09/2007 Yellow Cabs Offer New Mobile Booking Service -24/08/2007 Newer news items New Extneral Drives From Toshiba -07/07/2008 New Flash Memeory Card Standard Coming -16/09/2007 Solid State Drives Will Find A Home: IDC -12/08/2007 Older news items Flash Giant Offers 1.8 inch SSD -25/06/2007 Spinning Disks Aren't Standing Still -14/05/2007 Lexar Express SSD Has Backup Intent -01/05/2007 Samsung's Announces 16Gb Flash -30/04/2007 Dell Drives Into Solid State Storage -29/04/2007 Tag This Now: